1.3. General|common| structure of the eu
General structure of the European Union can be pictured as an antique building with three pillars.
The three pillars are:
The first or 'Community' pillar concerns economic, social and environmental policies.
The second or 'Common Foreign and Security Policy' (CFSP) pillar concerns foreign policy and military matters.
The third or 'Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters' (PJCC) pillar concerns co-operation in the fight against crime. This pillar was originally named 'Justice and Home Affairs'. (See picture 1.)
The pillar structure had its historical origins in the negotiations leading up to the Maastricht treaty. It was desired to add powers to the Community in the areas of foreign policy, security and defence policy, asylum and immigration policy, criminal co-operation, and judicial co-operation. However, some member-states opposed the addition of these powers to the Community on the grounds that they were too sensitive to national sovereignty for the community method to be used, and that these matters were better handled intergovernmentally. To the extent that at that time the Community dealt with these matters at all, they were being handled intergovernmentally, principally in European Political Cooperation (EPC).
As a result, these additional matters were not included in the European Community; but were tacked on externally to the European Community in the form of two additional 'pillars'. The first additional pillar (Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP) dealt with foreign policy, security and defence issues, while the second additional pillar (JHA, Justice and Home Affairs), dealt with the remainder.
Recent amendments in the treaty of Amsterdam and the treaty of Nice have made the additional pillars increasingly supranational. Most important among these has been the transfer of policy on asylum, migration and judicial co-operation in civil matters to the Community pillar, effected by the Amsterdam treaty. Thus the third pillar has been renamed Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters, or PJCC. The term Justice and Home Affairs is still used to cover both the third pillar and the transferred areas.
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European Communities (ECs) |
Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) |
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Foreign policy:
Security policy:
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Pic. 1 The European Union structure
Schengen Treaty – for self preparation
Within each pillar, a different balance is struck between the supranational and intergovernmental principles.
Supranationalism is strongest in the first pillar. Its function generally corresponded at first to the three European Communities. Then with the Treaty of Amsterdam additional areas would be transferred from the third pillar to the first. In the CFSP and PJCC pillars the powers of the European Parliament, the Commission and European Court of Justice with respect to the Council are significantly limited, without however being altogether eliminated. The balance struck in the first pillar is frequently referred to as the "community method", since it is that used by the European Community.
European Communities was the name given collectively to the European Economic Community (EEC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom) and the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), when in 1967, their bodies were merged with the Merger Treaty. The term now technically only refers to the EEC and Euratom. The ECSC ceased to exist when the Treaty of Paris which established it expired in 2002. Seen as redundant, no effort had been made to retain it — its assets and liabilities were transferred to the EC, and coal and steel became subject to the EC treaty.
The European Community (EC), most important of two European Communities, was originally founded on March 25, 1957 by the signing of the Treaty of Rome under the name of European Economic Community. The EEC soon became the most important of these three communities, subsequent treaties added further areas of competence extending beyond the purely economic. The other two communities remained extremely limited. The EEC had as its aim the eventual economic union of its member nations, ultimately leading to political union. It worked for the free movement of goods, service, labour and capital, the abolition of trusts and cartels, and the development of joint and reciprocal policies on labour, social welfare, agriculture, transport, and foreign trade.
The 'Economic' was removed from its name by the Maastricht treaty in 1992, which at the same time effectively made the European Community the first of three pillars of the European Union, called the Community (or Communities) Pillar. In Community Pillar policy areas decisions are made collectively by Qualified Majority Voting (QMV).
In 1956, the United Kingdom proposed that the Common Market be incorporated into a wide European free-trade area. After the proposal was vetoed by President Charles de Gaulle and France in November 1958, the UK together with Sweden engineered the formation (1960) of the European Free Trade Community (EFTA) and was joined by other European nations that did not belong to the Common Market (the Seven). Beginning in 1973, with British, Irish, and Danish accession to the EEC, the EFTA and the EEC negotiated a series of Treaties that would ensure uniformity between the two organisations in many areas of economic policy, and by 1995, all but four EFTA members had joined the European Union.
One of the first important accomplishments of the EEC was the establishment (1962) of common price levels for agricultural products. In 1968, internal tariffs (tariffs on trade between member nations) were removed on certain products.
The signed but unratified European Constitution would merge the European Community with the other two pillars of the European Union, making the European Union the legal successor of both the European Community and the present-day European Union. It was for a time proposed that the European Constitution should repeal the Euratom treaty, in order to terminate the legal personality of Euratom at the same time as that of the European Community, but this was not included in the final version.
Common Foreign and Security Policy
The Common Foreign and Security Policy, or CFSP, was established as the second of the three pillars of the European Union in the Maastricht treaty of 1992, and further defined and broadened in the Amsterdam Treaty of 1997. It superseded the European Political Cooperation.
The CFSP sees NATO responsible for territorial defence of Europe and "peace-making" while since 1999 the European Union is responsible for implementation missions; i.e. peace-keeping, policing of treaties etc.
According to the Treaty of the European Union, Article 11, the European Union defines and implements a common foreign and security policy covering all areas of foreign and security policy, the objectives of which shall be:
to safeguard the common values, fundamental interests, independence and integrity of the Union in conformity with the principles of the United Nations Charter;
to strengthen the security of the Union in all ways;
to preserve peace and strengthen international security, in accordance with the principles of the United Nations Charter, as well as the principles of the Helsinki Final Act and the objectives of the Paris Charter, including those on external borders;
to promote international cooperation;
to develop and consolidate democracy and the rule of law, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.
The European Council defines the principles and general guidelines for the CFSP as well as common strategies to be implemented by the EU. On the basis of those guidelines the Council of Ministers adopts joint actions or common positions.
Joint actions address specific situations where operation action by the EU is considered necessary and lay down the objectives, scope and means to be made available to the EU. They commit the member states.
Common positions on the other hand, define the approach that the EU takes on a certain matter of geographical or thematic nature, and define in the abstract the general guidelines that the national policies of Member states must conform to.
The treaties indicate that the function of the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy is exercised by the Secretary-General of the Council of Ministers, who assists the country holding the Presidency of the European Union in matters coming within the scope of the CFSP. When appropriate he conducts political dialogue with third parties, acting on behalf of the Council of Ministers, at the Request of the Presidency. He also coordinates the work of the European Union Special Representatives. The current High Representative for the CFSP is Javier Solana.
Since the Cologne European Council in 1999, the European Security and Defence Policy (or ESDP) has become a significant part of the CFSP.
Bodies of the European Union set up within the CFSP context include the following:
The General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC)
A Political and Security Committee or PSC, which monitors the international situation in the areas covered by the CFSP and contributes by delivering opinions to the Council of Ministers, either at its request or its own initiative, and also monitors the implementation of agreed policies.
The European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)
The European Union Satellite Centre (EUSC)